The position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China is charged with preparing the US for its international rivalry with China, and the potential of a military conflict with China.
The current Deputy Assistant, Chad Sbragia, testified to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and made it seem that China is just going to be a growing threat, and a war increasingly likely.
Sbragia suggested that the US needs to develop more, better, and deadlier weapons for a conflict with China, warning China will continue to challenge US national interests otherwise.
To fulfill his desire for a more lethal military, Sbragia says the US needs more hypersonic weapons, robots, and lasers. He added the US needs new alliances and partners aimed at China going forward.
The list of weapons is representative of things the Pentagon is already spending money on. This makes for safe comments for the deputy assistant, as he is both advocating the continuation of the status quo, and trying to present the China conflict as intrinsically linked to what the Pentagon is already doing.
Behaving like a power in a decline, seeing threats everywhere. Shame. America has tremendous potential to complete and collaborate, and do better then ever.
But since all the resources are going into preparing for doom, there is no money, no energy and no leadership left to explore a different course.
According to these prophets of doom, all we can do is spend every penny we have got getting ready to prevent anyone in the world developing and getting ahead of us. They are already casting us in the role of losers — having to make our last stand, not letting others get better then us in anything.
The idea that any country can forever be a leader in everything is absurd. US may have been in that unique place after WWII, as the world from Europe to China, was devastated. But now things look more like a normal world should look like — different countries getting good and better at different things. This is a normal dynamic, no need to pick our marbles and go home.
So, we are not best at everything? So what? Let market take care of supply and demand, and let legislature create environment protective of nation’s infrastructure for sustainable economy, for learning and healthy living.
There is a world of difference between planning for defense , and planning for war. Leadership is needed to both define and steer our cooperation with others in economy, and security.
We are hopefully more than the two-dimensional creatures that can think only in terms win-lose, and missing the world of opportunities that future can offer.
Great comment.
Natylie, As always. 🙂
We have and are an uber violent country. If we clash with China we will lose–unless, of course, we wipe out all of humanity, that would be in-line with our sense of being Exceptional.
My list of the 3 craziest countries;
1. US
2 Israel
3. Australia
….and all three were founded by emptying the land of the native peoples. That legacy is not so easy to cast aside.
Solly, but some of that is the way of humans, not specific to the USA only. Natives killed Natives on a grand scale.
First nations did not kill each other on a grand scale , read bury my heart at wounded knee , or the trail of tears and find out how the immigrants butchered their way from the East coast to the West , British history has a dark side but nothing compeared to the Americans treatment of the first nations which was nothing short of GENOCIDE.
They did, but then they didn’t brag about their democracy and freedoms.
The 4 horsemen of the apocalypse are America , Britian France , Israel , where ever DEATH DESTRUCTION & CHAOS is taking place you will find one or all of these countries involved , countries like Australia are just usefull idiots.
Yes. And, indeed, Britain was the biggest, racist colonial empire.
There is much truth in the behavioral ethnographic origins, explored by many from Toynbee to Lev Gumilev. Western science tends to follow deterministic logic , actors of history and their reasoning in response to environmental changes, eastern more behavioral and emotional processes in reaction to change. I believe in the latter. Once people migrate due to economic pressures, war plight or benefits of conquest, their emotional/behavioral response charts the path forward.
Those are just some of the examples we have a chance to observe in our lifetime, but there are many more, some more obscure then others.
The key characteristics is the mentality of exploitation of environment. There are no charms in that place that a newcomer can see. The native love for all the intrinsic aspects of the place is just not there. And with time, there is adjustment and with every passing generation the place feels more like home. But the universe has shifted for such people, and original sins remain.
And never endings hate of natives. Thus, you can study just about any language in earth in US — but try to find a University that teaches native American linguistics and existing languages, not easy. The process if trivializing and ridiculing “inferior” cultures, linguistic forms and traditions — are on going even in what we consider the most advanced countries. All you have to do is spend some time in Scotland to see how pernicious is the effect of superiority and how it manifests itself. Use of Gaelic language is derided by pointing out how more people in UK speak Polish then Gaelic. Subtle ridicule exists in so many levels. Now of course, there are mire speakers of Zulu in UK then speakers of Latin, which does not prevent Universities from teaching it, and continuing its use in legal and scientific terminology.
Which brings me to another determinant of emotional-behavioral nature. It is the creation of elites. Whoever claws to the top ruling echelons of any society — will impose their historic baggage on others, make their experiences become determinants in the future course if a society. This is much easier in societies of immigrants, as the deep seated traditions, customs and values do not exist. UK created many such transplanted societies around the world.
Bianca,
Good advice – for true “free market” believers – too bad that they don’t exist anymore. What we have in America, are would be rent-seekers, monopolists, and inheritors. Compete – “Hell No, Bomb the Bastards!” is how these folk feel about any competition.
We can recoup, but it will take socialism to get us going again – capitalism has soured beyond use. And, we will have to remake the Gravy Train into the little engine that could.
Richard, that is true to some extent, but we must purge the Ghouls oh DC to truly make change. D.S. calls it “Crony Capitalism”.
Spot on, Bianca. Here’s how I put it:
The time has come for the US, Europe, China, and Russia to join in a one-world partnership. End militarism, which at this point is suicidal. Convert MIC resources to productive purposes, part of which would be to help the less-modern world develop.
Get on with building the future. End conquest, pillage, and tyranny as a grotesque anachronism, a “winning strategy” — ***NOT*** — from humanity’s barbaric past.
Humanity’s barbarism is not just in the past. The powers that shouldn’t be are not suicidal they are genocidal. The kumbaya 60s didn’t change humanity. The new age vanishes when there are two people and only one cheese burger.
Some of us have learned how to share that burger.
You assume it is your burger to share.
This is how it will go, to the end. Americans are sheep, Chinese are sheep, and Europe is a cattle yard. The demons are our superiors, and they are in charge. Literally. So it was written and so shall it be.
It should be interesting if this doom comes in the form of COVID-19.
The U.S. may be so focused on getting China, they forget they are not the only players playing to win.
So if we get in a war with China, who is going to stock the shelves of Wal-Mart with cheap plastic sh*t?
I find it amusing that trump has led his base to reject China economically. One thing the right has done, is to organize effectively. With all the complaints about Chinese goods, I have yet to see any form of boycott of said goods from this organized right. Mendacity….
India, provided Trump’s upcoming meet with Modi goes well.
I often hear about this “cheap plastic sh*t” which some people seem to think is all that China supplies to the world. But they don’t realize that China also supplies car parts, electronics, appliances, toilet paper, diapers, pharmaceuticals (including a good portion of the world’s antibiotics) and many other necessities.
The American people need weapons to fight the bloodthirsty ghouls in the Pentagon.
Vic, and why should we not? Do they not revel in sending off our children in wars for Empire and profit to die or worse,,,they are Ghouls for sure and need total removal.
And here I was told we are the greatest democracy known to man, moreover one blessed by God.
Solly, The Creator will not bless those who are busy and worship the killing of their own children, as well as the killing of others as in V-Nam, Iraq, etc.
Yet, you still live here,
because you can’t find a better place?
I’m considering moving to Israel. LOL!!!
Hating the US so much, is under cut by your continue residence on formerly native peoples land. Now that’s funny!
Economic power is the basis for military power. The proper security strategy, in anticipation of China’s eventual economic dominance, is to start now to demilitarize the entire planet, not prepare for a humanity-ending war that can’t be won.
It’s past time to end the capitalism-driven, militarism-for-profit MIC. Retire the Pentagon. Make it a museum-of-the-savage-folly-of-man. Human productivity has risen to a level where every human on earth can have safety and the basic needs of life. War, conquest, theft, and tyranny are obsolete. Time for leadership by non-psychopaths.
The Pentagon is robbing humanity of it’s potential. Literally they steal the money we could use to make the world a better place for all. Then they lie about how the money is used and who gets it. It is hard to understand the logic that these parasites in the pentagon use to justify their murderous acts. They must not have families …. i would suppose they are asexual parasitic entities from another dimension.
Humanity is faced with an evolutionary step…which trait will emerge on top..empathy, or sociopathy? The pentagon is the sociopaths tool.
China has a standing army of some 6 million soldiers and if a war broke out they would probably triple that number , or does the US think it can bomb China into submission you know like Vietnam that didn`t work out to well did it , the fact is in a stand up fight the US and it`s NATO usefull idiots wouldn`t have a chance and with Russia likely to back China the out come is a for gone conclusion . Vietnam 2 only worse.
That’s why we need land mines. Seriously, the size of China’s army was one of the excuses I read. As if land mines would make a pinch of sh*t difference.
Little at all.
Chinese military doctrine was to use human wave attacks, so I’ve read. However, artillery would be used to disrupt minefields, and China has since updated its doctrine.
Landmines are more a psychological deterrent, but its not like soldiers can say no. Over the top and best of luck; don’t worry, the machine guns have your back.
The war is economic. More soldiers won’t help; they tend to be economically unproductive.
The US just can´t breath without wars.
The Chinese can’t breathe with COVID-19.
Sweet! The ant army versus the giant.
Of course, these people are appointed to be salivating warmongers regardless of any intelligence (ie brains) or commonsense.
The War on Terror was a military industrial holding action, until China developed enough to because a credible reason for massive defense spending.
What this means to me is that maybe now, finally, the Forever War can give way to a new Cold War with China.
I’m willing to bet if there ever is a problem between the 2 countries it will be the after the US tries to topple the government or takes the first shot or but China just like Russia has no interest in war they wouldn’t even build weapons but they have to protect themselves from the US’s crazy foreign policy. The same reason the Iran wants nuclear weapons would be because the US keeps threaten them so they’re suppose to use flintlocks?
Many commentators on the alternative news are pretty much convinced the U.S. biowarfared China with COVID-19, despite a determined disinfo campaign suggesting China developed and released COVID-19 on itself.
This kind of G5 warfare hybrid biological/psyop assault suggests the new weapons of war are developed and being deployed.
Or perhaps it’s exactly what it looks like — a local pandemic with a fairly low fatality rate that, so far, is being fairly effectively contained.
Last time I noticed, influenza had killed ten times as many people in the US as coronavirus had killed worldwide in the same period.
True, one can’t rule out natural causes. That’s what separates 5G warfare from open warfare. Plausible deniability in victimizing civilians and the civilian economy.
COVID-19 conspiracy fear works on three levels; is the virus naturally occurring or is it tweaked a bit, is COVID-19 spreading naturally or is it being given a little clandestine help, and exaggerating the real danger.
Qom, Iran is close to the Jamkaran ‘red flag’ mosque.
Wealthy Northern Italy is home to the anti-globalist Northern League Italian parties, and Italy was quick the join the Chinese Belt and Road, but Italy also has an aging population, the natural victims of cold and flu season.
Those seem to be odd places for the first major outbreaks outside Asia. Or not. Iran and wealthy Italians travel and do business with China. But surely not as much as Singapore, with no deaths and 96 infections.
Plausible denial is a critical part of 5G economic-ecological warfare. Send enough of a message such that the sharper victims feel, this is not an accident, while being able to argue innocently, this is a natural, not contrived, event.
The Iranians are furiously denying American medical help/medical spies in any case.
As far as they are concerned, Trump’s sanctions war continued crippling their health care system and left them vulnerable. How the infections occurred does not matter as much, as they blame the U.S. for everything.
The U.S. CDC regularly reports on the ‘disease burden’ of influenza. Its important to note these are estimates while COVID-19 are actual tallied cases. COVID-19 seems greatly exaggerated as a threat at 18,000-45,000 deaths.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
The danger of COVID-19 its politicization and socialization as a panic weapon.
The stock market extreme correction, for example, upsets may retired apple carts as well as the plans of actively employing businesses.
Democratic claims that Trump mishandled the outbreak are especially dangerous insofar as fearmongering panic and even desiring a real pandemic become attractive political weapons.
The threat to freedoms is also real; the WHO and some medical professionals praise China’s authoritarian response. However, China’s police state response did not stop the spread of the virus, save the economy, or demonstrably save lives. Some of China’s response seems drawn from the old ‘Red Guard’ playbook, not a modern capitalist state.